Bandshite is a small online shop I created. I've always been really crafty and enjoyed creating things. After having an Etsy shop dedicated to bracelets and necklaces I began to venture off into making things for something I was really passionate about: music. I started making pins for bands that I liked because it was a cool way to show my love and devotion for that band in a cool and punk rock way. In an incredible stroke of luck other people thought so too, and they not only started buying pins, they also suggested more for me to design.

The best thing about working with Bandshite was that I was my own boss, so I set goals for myself to make new things, but the ultimate goal was to learn how to make what I needed.

Bandshite grew through Tumblr, and most of my customers were young women ages 17 - 24 and other people who loved music, so my main target was them. I was really fortunate to have a lot of interaction on my Tumblr blog that allowed me to get direct feedback on designs and ideas. The personas created for my Bandshite projects were always inspired by my own friends, who were people that loved going to concerts, enjoyed indie music, bought band merch, and often times collected records.

At first, my design process was messy. It was awful. I had never had to design so much and with so much freedom. I had to quickly form a system for my projects because it was really overwhelming to have to design pins, and make them, and ship them. And during the creation of the website I stopped selling completely.

Bandshite was the first time I had to design a fully functioning website on my own. When I decided to build it, I closed shop, and started learning how exactly I should go about building this. I knew basic web design, and HTML and CSS, but I had never even looked at Javascript.

Bandshite was my own business, a business comes with a lot of problems. I didn’t anticipate how many I would encounter, so I wasn’t prepared when my site went down, or when I broke things. I learned a lot, and got better, but it was a very stressful situation to be in because I was also putting my livelihood on the line a lot of the time.

Every experience with Bandshite was new. I had never had to deal with customer satisfaction before, I had never had to make a website. My creativity and passion for music took drove me to create something that became my job, it was amazing.

I’m glad I had bandshite to help me pay my schooling but in the end, it became too difficult to balance school and an online business, so I set my sights on new goals and closed shop.